Tina Tchen, a prominent Chicago attorney who was first lady Michelle Obama's chief of staff, bought a lakefront home in Beverly Shores she and her kids had admired for years.

Tina Tchen, a prominent Chicago attorney who worked in the Obama White House from 2009 through 2017, most of the time as First Lady Michelle Obama's chief of staff, has bought a weekend home on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Beverly Shores, Ind.

Tchen, who told Crain's she has had a Beverly Shores home since 2000 and "have always had my eyes on" this one she purchased in late August, paid $1.55 million for the three-story, six-bedroom home on Lake Front Drive. She said her children laughed when she told them she had bought it, because "we had always talked about that house."

The house has decks on several levels, some open and some screened, and indoor rooms that have large windows, high ceilings and light finishes. The sellers listed the 5,900-square-foot home on a half-acre lot in December, asking just under $1.8 million.

Beverly Shores is only about an hour's drive from the Loop office of law firm Buckley Sandler, where Tchen is a partner.

Tchen's previous home in the secluded lakeshore town surrounded by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore will go on the market at $889,000 within the next couple of weeks, according to its listing agent, Ali Fowler, an agent with Seramur Properties in Valparaiso, Ind. Fowler represented both Tchen and the seller in the August transaction.

Tchen's new house was built in 1988, as the town's profile was changing dramatically. Homes that were directly on the water had been bought up by the park service and were being demolished as their residents' leasebacks expired. The result is that many homes on the inland side of Lakefront Drive, like this one, have uninterrupted views of Lake Michigan.

The view from the house is "beautiful," Tchen said. "I love coming to Beverly Shores for the nature and the lake, and I'm delighted that I have a home that I can grow old in and have grandchildren and others come for many years to come." The interior was updated in the early 2000s, Fowler said, and has an advantage over the many homes in the dunes that have steep driveways: "It's one of the only homes in town with a flat driveway."

A native of Ohio, Tchen is a Northwestern University School of Law graduate who practiced at the law firm Skadden Arps for 23 years before she joined the Obama administration. In Washington, she held several positions including director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, chief of staff for the First Lady, and executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

Previously, she was a fundraiser for Barack Obama's 2004 Senate campaign and 2008 Presidential campaign, and in the 1980s worked on Harold Washington's mayoral campaigns in 1983 and 1987, according to the Washington Post.